Jenah Shank learned to act with the “heart of a servant” from her parents, Elmer and Ginny Ross, while growing up in Chippewa Township, Pa., As the youngest of nine children, Shank said, “I was raised serving,” noting that, in addition to their own children, her parents “took in over 55 foster children.” Shank said that her parents were foster parents long before there were “official foster parent programs.” Her father was a minister, and children were sometimes “just dropped off” when a family either could not care for them or did not want them. Shank said if her parents heard of someone who needed a home, “they took them in.”

Shank graduated from Beaver Falls High School in 1983, and, with concentrations in journalism, history and political science, she earned her bachelor’s degree from

See Full Page